Children of President Obama, media elite go to schools with armed security guards

If the elites in our country are anything they are consistent. Consistently hypocritical.

In a passionate speech just days after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre made what many saw as a bold, outside-the-box suggestion for keeping schools safer moving forward: Put trained, armed guards in them as a way to thwart future attacks by well-armed lunatics and crazies who are doped up on psychotropic drugs:

…[F]or all the noise and anger directed at us over the past week, no one – nobody – has addressed the most important, pressing and immediate question we face: How do we protect our children right now, starting today, in a way that we know works? The only way to answer that question is to face up to the truth. Politicians pass laws for Gun-Free School Zones. They issue press releases bragging about them. They post signs advertising them. And in so doing, they tell every insane killer in America that schools are their safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk.

The politics of hypocrisy

Mocked by an absurdly biased mainstream media, labeled as “crazy” by left-wing pundits and politicians, LaPierre went on to point out the blatant hypocrisy of those who have condemned him and his suggestion as unworkable, unwise and simply unthinkable:

How have our nation’s priorities gotten so far out of order? Think about it. We care about our money, so we protect our banks with armed guards. American airports, office buildings, power plants, courthouses – even sports stadiums – are all protected by armed security. We care about the President, so we protect him with armed Secret Service agents. Members of Congress work in offices surrounded by armed Capitol Police officers. Yet when it comes to the most beloved, innocent and vulnerable members of the American family – our children – we as a society leave them utterly defenseless, and the monsters and predators of this world know it and exploit it.

This hypocrisy was epitomized by none other than NBC‘s David Gregory, who badgered LaPierre over his stance during a Dec. 23 interview:

You proposed armed guards in school. We’ll talk about that in some detail in a moment. You confronted the news media. You blamed Hollywood and the gaming industry. But never once did you concede that guns could actually be part of the problem. Is that a meaningful contribution, Mr. LaPierre, or a dodge?

In trying to be too clever by half, Gregory went on. Citing mass shootings at Columbine and Virginia Tech, both incidents in which armed guards or police officers were present on the grounds, he tried to bait LaPierre: “But you would concede that, as good as an idea as you think this is, it may not work. Because there have been cases where armed guards have not prevented this kind of massacre, this kind of carnage. I want you would concede that point, wouldn’t you?”

Only the privileged deserve protection?

Not so surprisingly, Gregory himself conveniently left out the fact that he sends his children to the Quaker school Sidwell Friends where there is a security department consisting of 11 personnel, according to the Weekly Standard, many of whom are police officers and therefore presumed armed.

But even if they aren’t, Gregory’s kids – and those of a number of political and media elites who also send their children there – will benefit from the full-time Secret Service protection afforded Obama’s children, who attend the school. The others whose children attend Sidwell represent a cornucopia of voices now calling for more gun laws, stricter gun control and outright gun bans.

Finally, there is this: Gregory smugly asserted that the armed guards at Columbine and Virginia Tech did nothing to prevent the armed attacks on those schools.

Fine. But I have to ask: Would he consider placing his children in a school without armed guards? Is he willing to take a chance with the lives of his kids to practice what he and others who hold his point of view (and who also have kids in elite, well-protected schools) condescendingly preach?